Posted on 12/22/2004 11:07:00 AM PST by mhking
Carlos Owens is building an 18-foot tall mech (or battle robot) in his back yard.
Owens, a 26 year-old steel worker in Anchorage, AK, plans on finishing it next summer.
"This is a concept that's been around for a long time," Owens said in a telephone interview. "But I'm not going to wait for the other guy to come out and make it when I've got the capability to do it myself."Owens suggests on his own website, Neogentronix.com, that one day mechs like this would be able to help put our wildfires or go into military combat.He's always had an eye for huge projects, and an inventor's itch. He built a 35-foot wooden version of his mecha when he was 19, he said, as a sculpture project because he couldn't afford the materials to make it function. The latest project, drawing on his experience in the Army and as a steelworker, is more ambitious.
"I've always been building things," he said. "But with the mecha I wanted to do something different than what everyone else was doing. It's hard to invent something new."
When completed, the idea is for the pilot to be able to strap himself into a central, padded compartment, and then control the mecha with the motions of his own body. When the pilot walks, the mecha walks. Raise an arm and open a hand, and the mecha does the same, with 46 possible movements planned.
Sounds like he's watched one too many episodes of Gundam Wing or someother Anime on Adult Swim.
Go towards the light! Go towards the light!
Man it is just so unfair that I don't know her.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh I remember that. What was that show called? Wasn't it Japanese?
VHI had a hilarious program about the 70's, I was laughing my butt off. Thank goodness I was only a kid then.
Escaflowne ping... does his giant mecha come with Gregorian choir to follow around and provide background music?
By the way, that's a strange place to hide a flashlight.
If it doesn't, he should scrap it and start over...
Johnny Sako's Robot!
He claims he's building it bottom heavy so that wouldn't (for the most part) be a problem.
Something like this was on the cover of Popular Science in the 1960's. This was during a period when the government was supporting research into devices that would magnify human strength.
Wait'll you see her in action (yes, I've seen the first NINE episodes, and no, they won't be on in the US until next month)...
Thanks! Now everybody around thinks I'm nuts.
Bingo. Sad, actually.
I stand corrected.
Since everyone's afraid of sending in planes to bomb Iran's weapon sites, maybe we could send this guy in.
Transformers! Less than meets the eye!
No, that's not an oxymoron... it's redundant.
jk . ;-)
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